“As I tried to doze, the incident on the piazzetta, lost somewhere amid the Piave war memorial and our ride up the… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“But I also knew that I was circling wagons around my life with try again later s, and that months, seasons, entire… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Wait. Are you saying what I think you're saying?' 'Ye-es.' Now that I had spilled the beans I could take on the… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Oliver was Oliver,' I said, as if that summed things up. 'Parce que c'était lui, parce que c'était moi,' my father added,… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Fear not. It will come. At least I hope it does. And when you least expect it. Nature has cunning ways of… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“He kissed me on the mouth, but it wasn't the kiss after the Pasquino, when he'd pressed me hard against the wall… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Seeing him and thinking he'd join us for dinner tonight only to hear his peremptory Esco taught me there are certain wishes… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“I wish I could be with you all,' I responded, getting all worked up myself over someone I had almost entirely stopped… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Fire like fear, like panic, like one more minute of this and I'll die if he doesn't knock at my door, but… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“The look on his face became like the tiny snapshot of a beloved that soldiers take with them to the battlefield, not… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“And yet another part of me knew that if he showed up tonight and I disliked the start of whatever was in… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Never in my life had I been so happy. Nothing could go wrong, everything was happening my way, all the doors were… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“In years to come, if the book was still in his possession, I wanted him to ache. Better yet, I wanted someone… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“What does this say about the life you've lived, then?' 'Part of it— just part of it —was a coma, but I… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Leaning out into the evening air, I knew that this might never be given to us again, and yet I couldn't bring… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Before long, my mother's friend, who, at the last minute, decided to stay for dinner, was asked to sit where I'd sat… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Like the subconscious, like love, like memory, like time itself, like every single one of us, the church is built on the… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Just because someone says he'll see you at midnight doesn't mean you're automatically bound to hug him when you've barely shaken hands… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“What if my body—just my body, my heart—cried out for his? What to do then? What if at night I wouldn't be… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“But I couldn't even remember last night's anxieties. They were completely overshadowed by what followed them and seemed to belong to a… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“My mother, who hated what she called his Americanisms , ended up calling him Il cauboi —the cowboy. It started as a… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“For weeks I had mistaken his stare for barefaced hostility. I was wide of the mark. It was simply a shy man's… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“And yet, out of the blue, a tender moment would erupt so suddenly between us that the words I longed to tell… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“I looked at him: I want one more kiss. I should, could, have seized him. By the next morning, things became officially… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Are you going to be okay?' 'I thought I was. I'll get over it.' I'd heard too many characters say the same… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
Don't all writers have a hidden nerve, call it a secret chamber, something irreducibly theirs, which stirs their prose and makes it tick and… — Andre Aciman Copy Share Image
“I wanted him to remember the morning on Monet's berm when I'd kissed him not the first but the second time and given him… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
Rituals are how we step into our private field of dreams, a small Elysium all our own. Rituals are made not just for us,… — Andre Aciman Copy Share Image
“I desperately wanted to give him something. By contrast, taking seemed so bland, so facile, so mechanical.” — André Aciman Copy Share Image
Proust is interested in minutiae because life, as he sees it, is seldom ever about things but about our impression of things, not about… — Andre Aciman Copy Share Image
“Well, since you're not going to do anything with me—can you at least read me a story? I'd settle for that. I wanted him… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“This is heaven.” And I wouldn’t hear him say another word for at least an hour. There was nothing I loved more in life… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“He loved the sticky taste. What had I done? I told him and pointed to the bruised evidence sitting on my desk. “Let me… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“When had they separated us, you and me, Oliver? And why did I know it, and why didn't you?” — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“As we were swimming back, he asked as though it were an afterthought, “Are you going to hold last night against me?” — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“To be with you. To be with you, Oliver. With or without my bathing suit. To be with you on my bed. In your… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
